


The Tsum of Our Parts

by Shi_Toyu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arc Reactor Angst, Arc Reactor Issues, Avengers Family, BAMF Jarvis (Iron Man movies), BAMF Tony Stark, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Returns, Cold, Couch Cuddles, Cuddles, Domestic Avengers, Eventual Happy Ending, Family Feels, Feels, Happy Ending, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Kid Tony Stark, M/M, Nightmares, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Romantic Soulmates, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, SoulTsums, Soulmates, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Tony Angst, Tony Being Tony, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Cuddles, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Nightmares, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Has Trust Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric, Touch-Starved, Touching, Tsum Tsums, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, tsumtsums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 23:33:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17171576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_Toyu/pseuds/Shi_Toyu
Summary: Tony couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t had his soul Tsum. The little thing had appeared as soon as Tony was born, which wasn’t completely unheard of. It just meant that his soulmate was older than him, old enough to have already developed their own Tsum characteristics, so maybe early teenage years. That happened all the time. It wasn’t even particularly scandalous. They’d probably meet later in life, when the age gap didn’t mean quite so much.What was unusual was how cold his Tsum was.





	The Tsum of Our Parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Briz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briz/gifts).



> Only thing really of note for the story itself is that I played with the timeline a bit so that the events of Thor: The Dark World take place before Iron Man 3. Hope you all enjoy!
> 
> A holiday gift for Briz! This is probably a bit angstier than what you intended when you asked for a Tsum soulmate AU, but... I have no excuses, so just feel free to insert something compelling and reasonable. 
> 
> Special shoutouts to the three people who made this fic what it is! Big, big, portal-over-New-York-sized thanks to [Amethystina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethystina), [Skye_wyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skye_wyr), and [deathsweetqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen) for lending me their amazing beta skills!

Tony couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t had his soul Tsum. The little thing had appeared as soon as Tony was born, which wasn’t completely unheard of. It just meant that his soulmate was older than him, old enough to have already developed their own Tsum characteristics, so maybe early teenage years. That happened all the time. It wasn’t even particularly scandalous. They’d probably meet later in life, when the age gap didn’t mean quite so much.

What _was_ unusual was how cold his Tsum was.

Ana had once told him that, as a baby, they’d had to wrap him in multiple blankets, always keeping one between him and his Tsum lest he cry from the temperature. It didn’t _burn_ , exactly, but it was deeply cold. Even as the years passed, it was difficult for Tony to stay in elongated contact with his Tsum. It was… awful, actually. Soul Tsums were _meant_ to provide contact and comfort until one finally found their soulmate. That was why they were always so affectionate. People _needed_ to be able to touch their Tsums. Scientists had discovered all sorts of negative side-effects if that touch was denied. Depression, erratic behavior, loneliness… They called it Soul Hunger or Tsum Touch Starvation.

Because of this, Tony became accustomed to wearing heavy clothes, even in the height of summer. Sweatshirts were the norm for him, his brunette Tsum snuggled into the front pocket or riding along in his hood. He was the only child on the playground who never ran around in shorts and a t-shirt. His mother had lamented time and again the tragedy that was not being able to dress him up in a little romper. That was okay with Tony, though. His sweatshirts and jackets were always cuddly and warm. It was like getting to wear a blanket wherever he went. Maybe he sweat a little more than most, but there were worse things: if he hugged his Tsum tight enough, the cold would still seep through every layer between them.

He was five years old the first time his Tsum wasn’t cold.

It happened suddenly, without warning or fanfare. Tony didn’t even notice at first, truth be told. He only noticed when the sweatshirt he was wearing gradually moved from comfortable to stifling. He reached into the pocket to urge his Tsum, having now grown from the size of his thumb to that of a small cat, out so he could change. He almost jerked away completely when the plush that crawled into his hand wasn’t cold in the slightest. Forgetting his discomfort, he’d run straight to Mr. Jarvis.

His mother had been overjoyed by the news and even his father’s ever-stern expression had eased somewhat when he’d been informed. Tony was finally being _normal_ for once. He beamed so hard his cheeks hurt for the entire three days it lasted. When he awoke that fourth morning, shivering and teeth clattering against each other, he couldn’t stop the tears that fell down his face. Stark men were made of iron, but Tony felt as brittle as thin ice.

By the time Tony was ten years old, his Tsum had grown too large to carry comfortably. Ze was about the size of a large sheepdog, albeit with shorter legs, and while Tony _could_ carry zir, ze filled his arms completely to do so. Instead, his Tsum scurried behind him and would press zirself up against his legs anytime he was still. He got in the habit of wearing thermal leggings under his pants.

As ze had grown, zir features grew clearer. No one knew quite how Tsum appearances worked, but most scientists agreed that they appeared in whatever one’s soulmate found most comfortable or at home in. Tony’s soulmate apparently preferred long-sleeved, red shirts and jeans with a silver glove or something over their left hand. It was hard to tell when his Tsum’s limbs were nothing more than little nubs. The Tsum’s hair hung long around zir face and was swept up into a bun in the back. So… probably a girl?

As the years passed, Tony’s soul Tsum continued to come to room temperature for a few days here and there, never with any pattern that Tony was able to find. He was pathetically grateful that one of these times overlapped with when his parents died in a car accident. Howard had been drunk again, _of course,_ and sent them careening off the road. Neither of them had been particularly attentive parents, but they’d still been his _parents_. Tony had needed something to cling to as he cried.

After that, the years passed quickly. Tony finished up school, took over Stark Industries, and did everything he possibly could to drive it towards the future. His father’s shadow loomed over him, but he fought tooth and nail to get out from under it, to stand on his own two feet. He had grown up wanting to be just like his father, but that December night had changed all that. Now he wanted to be _better_. And if he carried a few eccentricities with him, like never letting anyone else drive the vehicle he was in if he could help it, well, no one had to know where they came from.

Tony lived and breathed weapons. He created them bigger. He created them stronger. He created them more destructive than they’d ever been before. He revolutionized the weapons industry again and again, driven to prove that he could do more than his father had done. Obie stood at his shoulder for all of it, encouraging and guiding him. He gave Tony a focus for where to concentrate his drive and, together, they took the world by storm.

SI branched out into other industries, growing into a multinational corporation with a net worth in the _trillions._ Tony had grown up rich, but what he made now dwarfed even that. He didn’t know what to do with it all, so he spent it on anything and everything and still had more left over. He donated huge lump sums to charity, something Obie teased him for, but it wasn’t like he had anything better to do with it. It was his newly-appointed assistant Pepper Potts who suggested finally starting a charity of his own.

The Maria Stark Foundation covered a wide variety of interests and Tony was surprised to find that it was the first time he’d created something he actually felt _proud_ of. (JARVIS and the bots excepting, of course. The MSF was something that was for more than just himself.) It marked a shifting point for him. He still created weapons and kept that part of SI alive and thriving, but he shunted most of the work off onto his R&D department. It was what they were being paid for, after all. Instead, he dedicated most of his attention toward other projects: medical equipment, a self-driving car, household electronics, things that had always been considered side projects before.

Obie was disgruntled by the change at first, but eventually came to terms with the new reality of things. Pepper, at least, supported him. (As did Pepper’s soulmate and Tony’s over-protective bodyguard, Happy. But Tony was pretty sure Happy would support him if he said he was going to start living on Mars and commute back to Earth for board meetings, so he didn’t count.) Rhodey kept telling him to do whatever made him happy, just to make sure he didn’t forget the military while he was doing it. His weapons did a lot of good, kept a lot of men and women safe out there on the front lines. Through it all, Tony’s soul Tsum stayed at his side.

Then Afghanistan happened.

Tony’s Tsum was a relief in the blazing heat of the desert, but there was little to keep the chill away once night fell and the temperature in the cave plummeted, especially after going a few rounds with having his head held underwater. He wished and begged for his Tsum to be anything but absolutely frigid during those months, _needing_ to cling to zir but knowing that catching illness here could very likely kill him faster than the terrorists could. That was probably the only reason his captors actually let him keep the Tsum; it was more torture having zir there and being unable to touch zir than if they’d stolen zir away.

He should have known that Yinsen not having a Tsum anymore meant that his family was dead. He’d been as blind to that as he had to everything else. Finding out that Obie had been the one to betray him, having to kill him, was nearly as painful as his parents’ deaths. By the time he managed to pull himself out of the grief, the palladium poisoning had already set in.

So started the months of slowly getting sicker and sicker, a gradual decline that he tried to cover up every step of the way. No one noticed until it was nearly too late, except for fucking Fury, apparently. And Natalie. Natasha. Whatever. Just another person he’d been starting to trust only for them to turn around and stab him in the neck. He did his best not to let the sting of her assessment of him show. Who could even properly judge someone while they were dying?

Still, he agreed to become a consultant for SHIELD. He’d rather be able to keep an eye on them, anyway. Plus, Agent seemed like a pretty alright guy. Tony couldn’t just abandon him to the wolves that were the rest of his shifty organization.

Cue alien invasion. Some days, Tony just wasn’t quite convinced that his life was _real_. The Avengers were apparently a _thing_ now, though, and Tony was a member of the boy band after all. Kind of. They pretty much all split up and went their separate ways after Loki and Thor zapped their way back to Asgard, so he wasn’t sure how much of a boy band there really was. Meeting Captain America was pretty cool, though. He was a bit of an ass, but Tony supposed he was a genuinely good guy once they got past that. They didn’t exactly interact a whole lot.

The nightmares and panic attacks that followed flying a nuke into outer space, he could have done without. But, Tony supposed, that was life. He started drinking more before bed to try and knock himself out more thoroughly and, when that didn’t work, he tried just not sleeping at all. His Tsum tried to offer comfort, but ze was just so _cold_. Fuck, space had been cold, too. Like a fucking freezer. He never thought he’d miss his nightmares from the desert, but now it felt as if there was always some great threat looming over him. He built feverishly, striving for bigger and better, desperate to protect the world.

Bruce helped, when he was around, but his science bro was spending more and more time away from the tower. Tony couldn’t exactly blame him. Pepper was too busy being CEO to devote as much time to him as she used to and, although she did try, Tony could see the way his behavior was starting to wear on her. It wasn’t like Rhodey was around to pick up the slack of having to deal with Tony Stark, off fighting the good fight as War Machine. Really, Happy was the only one of his friends who stayed in regular contact.

Eventually, Pepper and Happy moved back to Malibu, and Tony did his best to pull himself back together. The nightmares continued, never giving him a single night’s peace and Tony couldn’t help but feel like there was something more coming. There was a threat out there, among the stars, and they were woefully unprepared to meet it. He reached out to Bruce and begged him to come back and help him with his newest project idea, a shield for the whole world. There would never be enough suits for Tony to be able to manage it, he was just one man, but a _program_ might be able to. Especially if that program had suits of its own. In fact, unmanned armors without weapons capabilities would go a long way towards helping evacuate and protect civilians, if an event like the Chitauri invasion ever happened again.

He was in the lab late at night, Bruce having already headed to bed, when his Tsum came running over and leapt into his lap. He caught the plush body on instinct, almost dropping zir again when he wasn’t met by the cold he’d been expecting. He pulled his Tsum closer a moment later, a small, sad smile on his lips as he stood from the workbench.

“J, shut it down for the night, would you?”

He needed to enjoy this while he could. He didn’t know how long this would last, but he was going to spend every second of the time he had cuddling his Tsum until ze turned cold again. While he’d never managed to find a doctor who could explain his Tsum’s temperature, they all agreed that the contact between them should be taken advantage of whenever possible. It wouldn’t make up for all the time he missed out on, but it would bring some relief to his symptoms. At least for a short time.

He detoured by his kitchen, arms wrapped around his over-sized Tsum as he poked around for something to munch on. He wrinkled his nose at not finding much. It wasn’t that he didn’t _have_ food so much as he wasn’t seeing anything he felt like consuming. He frowned as he wandered back out again and headed toward the couch. Just because he’d stepped away from his work didn’t mean he felt like sleeping. He’d rather not deal with nightmares tonight, thank you very much.

“Cue up the latest TED Talk, JARVIS, and order in some food. Something simple that won’t get my hands greasy.”

“Of course, Sir.”

The next morning, the Winter Soldier killed Fury.

Warm Tsum or no, Tony didn’t have time to be ignoring the world. He kept his Tsum close as they retreated back to the lab, Bruce and his Tsum joining them with wide, scared eyes. They set to work trying to find out what was going on, their worlds tilting and spinning out of control when the word came through that first Steve and then Natasha were wanted criminals in connection to Fury’s death.

“There’s no way,” Bruce denied, hugging his cat-sized Tsum of Betty Ross to his chest for comfort. “There’s no way they could have anything to do with that.”

Tony nodded in sure agreement, typing away at his keyboard as he attempted to track his teammates down. If they were going to be able to help, they needed to know where Steve and Nat had run off to.

“There’s something more going on. J, are we still in SHIELD’s systems?”

“Yes, Sir. Our presence has remained undetected.”

“Okay, forget about subtlety. At this point, I don’t really care about getting caught. Find out what the hell’s going on.”

They hadn’t pushed the envelope much with their hacking, not wanting to make SHIELD aware that they had access to their systems, but desperate times and all that. Tony wasn’t playing games anymore. With Fury dead and his teammates being hunted, Tony needed all of the information he could get. His Tsum pressed close to his side the entire time.

The situation only became more dire as word came in about an old army base being blown sky high, the same one where Tony knew Steve had done his basic training. Only a few hours later, news networks were showing aerial footage of Captain America, Black Widow, and an unidentified third person being taken into custody. There’d been a fight beforehand, an overturned bus clear near the edge of the camera frame, but no actual footage of the fight. Not even shaky cellphone or dashcam footage from one of the civilians who’d been there, which was strange and raised all sorts of red flags.

What was _happening_?

When JARVIS found the evidence of Hydra inside SHIELD, Tony felt like the bottom of his world had dropped out from underneath him. It was like Obie all over again. He’d met Alexander Pierce numerous times, certainly got along with him much better than he did with Fury. They spoke the same language, business and politics. Tony had _liked_ the guy, had added him to the invitation list for several of his more exclusive galas. Hell, Tony had designed the thruster systems for the new helicarriers. He’d made this entire, insane plot _possible_.

 _Tony_ had done this.

He felt sick to his stomach. He’d thought this was over, that he was finally taking steps in the right direction to make up for his ignorance and oblivious stupidity for so many years. He thought he was maybe, eventually, going to be able to mop up even a bit of all the innocent blood he’d spilled. Instead he’d done the exact same thing he’d always done, armed the people killing for their own gain and pleasure and felt proud for doing it. He struggled to choke back the bile that rose in his throat.

“We have to stop it,” he choked out, barely able to face Bruce’s concern. He didn’t deserve anyone’s worry. “We have to stop the helicarriers from making it off the ground. If they do…”

 _Millions_ would die. In _seconds_.

Would he be among them? Or would Hydra laughingly let him live so they could continue to use him? Apparently, he made it pretty damn easy for them.

“How?” Bruce questioned. “They’re in DC. There’s no way we could get there in time.”

Tony ground his teeth together. There had to be something he could do. _Anything_. He couldn’t let this happen. Literally the only people Tony knew in DC right now were useless politicians, Aunt Peggy, and SHIELD agents. How in the world was Tony supposed to handle something like this? Fuck, fuck, _fuck!_ And what did it say about him that he could already think of more than just a handful of parallels between what Hydra was trying to do and his own goals with Ultron.

In the end, it was Cap who swooped in to save the day, like usual. Tony didn’t know how he got there, alongside Natasha, the mystery man, and a very _not dead_ Fury, but he was glad they decided to show up. When Natasha dumped all of SHIELD/Hydra’s data onto the internet, Tony scrambled to pull as much of it as he could. JARVIS and Bruce helped him, pulling information, scrubbing it from the source, and sorting through it for what needed to be acted upon _now_.

Tony gave Pepper a heads-up and then immediately diverted all of the SI planes to rescue operations, reaching out to some of his contacts from his weapons days and paying for some of the more clandestine people he knew to use their smuggling skills for something _good_ for once. Individuals like Ulysses Klaue might not be good for much in respectable circles, but they knew how to get into and out of sticky situations without getting caught. Hundreds of SHIELD agents, people who had nothing to do with Hydra’s infestation, had been burned in Nat’s info dump. If Tony wanted any hope of getting them out alive, he had to move quickly and use any means available to him.

At the same time, he worked on relocating the families of SHIELD employees to safer locations. It took only a few hours for a team to go through the Stark Mansion and clear out, preparing it to receive the influx of guests. It wasn’t enough space, Tony knew, but it would have to do until he could come up with a longer-term solution.

Natasha and Fury were in the wind, but Tony was able to track Steve down to the hospital where he was recovering, pulling his room number out of their system and calling the room six times in a row before finally getting an answer.

“Who are you and what do you want?” an unfamiliar voice said, with no small amount of defensive hostility. “If you’re a reporter, do me a favor and go ahead and fuck off.”

Tony’s eyebrow arched and he exchanged an amused glance with Bruce. It was the first time he’d been able to feel anything other than panic, dread, or guilt in days.

“Sam Wilson, I take it? This is Tony Stark.”

There was a choked off sort of noise as Sam sputtered, and Tony could just barely hear Steve in the background, probably asking who it was. A moment later, Steve’s voice came through the receiver as he took the phone from Sam.

“Tony,” he greeted warmly, “I’m glad to hear from you.”

“Nuh-uh,” Tony reprimanded. “Don’t you give me that. You’re in big trouble, Mister. Who said you could go off fighting Hydra without the rest of your team, huh? You know how much Barton likes being put in handcuffs and you _still_ went and got arrested without calling first. Bruce and I have been feeling very left out.”

Tony could practically see the way Steve rolled his eyes and the smile that crept across his face. He had no idea how much Tony was going to chew him out for this clusterfuck as soon as Steve couldn’t just hang up to escape the lecture. Let him think he was safe for now.

“Sorry,” Steve apologized, sounding disgustingly sincere for a throw-away comment. “Your invitations must have gotten lost in the mail. I don’t suppose there’s any way I can make it up to you, is there?”

Shit, but Tony had missed Steve. They might not have as close after the invasion as Tony and Bruce had, but everyone on the team had kept in touch. By this point, Tony felt like he could almost call Cap a friend.

“Actually, yes. You see, I’ve recently come into quite a bit of information regarding Hydra strongholds and I’d really like to see them wiped off the map. I’m calling the team together. I need everyone in New York so we can come up with a strategy. You can even bring your new friend with you.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Steve said warmly. “There’s something I could use your help with, anyway.”

Tony didn’t even feel bad for laughing at him.

“You’ve got the wrong idea, Cap. This was a courtesy call. Happy’s in the lobby. Pack your bags; he’ll drive you to the airport. Clint’s waiting with a quinjet.”

Steve chuckled.

“Only you, Tony,” he said disbelievingly. “Alright. See you soon.”

“Looking forward to it, Capsicle.”

He let out a sigh as the call ended, feeling some of the tension in his shoulders that he’d been carrying for the past week loosen. Bruce was watching him from his own lab station, a warm, soft look in his eyes.

“What?”

Bruce immediately dropped his gaze, adjusting his glasses and turning back to his work.

“Nothing. Just… relief is a good look on you. You were really worried about him, huh?”

Tony shrugged, reaching down to pull his over-sized Tsum into his lap. Somehow, miraculously, ze was still warm. This was the longest ze had ever gone without growing cold again. Tony couldn’t help but wonder what that meant. Maybe he’d bring it up with Helen once things had calmed down a bit.

“Steve doesn’t exactly have the greatest history with Hydra. This had to have hit him hard. I mean, none of the rest of us were there in the beginning, you know? To us, Hydra was like… a villain from a movie or book. They weren’t _real_. Not the way they were for Steve. He put that plane in the ocean, lost _everything_ , for the promise that it would be what brought Hydra down. Then he wakes up in this new world, seventy years in the future, and he’s told that he did it. Hydra is gone, the war is over. So, he starts building a new life, getting himself back together, working for SHIELD when the Avengers aren’t needed, only to find out that SHIELD was Hydra all along. That kind of thing has to do a number on a guy.”

Bruce hummed in acknowledgement.

“He did everything he could. This wasn’t his fault.”

Tony jerked in surprise.

“Of course not! There’s no way-“

“And it’s not yours, either,” Bruce interrupted like Tony hadn’t even been talking. “You know that, don’t you?”

He could only give Bruce an incredulous look.

“Of course, I do.”

His Science Bro didn’t look convinced.

“Do you? Don’t forget I _know_ you, Tony. Can you really tell me that you’re not blaming yourself for every single project you did for SHIELD? Every piece of technology you gave them?”

Tony glared, his hands tightening in his Tsum’s sides.

“You have to admit, I made the whole thing rather easy for them, what with redesigning the helicarrier’s engines. This whole plot wouldn’t have happened without my input.”

Bruce just gave him a bland look of disapproval.

“You know, I never really understood where Natasha got that ‘narcissism’ bit in her assessment, but now I’m starting to see it. Are you seriously sitting there and trying to take the blame for Hydra’s insanity because of some _engines?_ They already had helicarriers, Tony. This would have happened with or without you. This is no more your fault than it is Steve’s.”

Tony wished he could see it that way. He really did, but he knew too well just how much he had overlooked. Bruce might have some good points, but that didn’t make him right. He didn’t have all the information.

“There was no way Steve could have known about Hydra,” he reiterated. “ _I_ should have. I was in SHIELD’s systems, Bruce! JARVIS has kept a backdoor open ever since our first hack on the helicarrier during Loki’s invasion. I could have done the digging and found them out ages ago, but I didn’t want to get caught and only poked around a few things instead.”

Bruce removed his glasses and set them aside, pinching the bridge of his nose as he inhaled deeply.

“You’re really unbelievable, Tony, you know that? _Fury_ didn’t know. Paranoid, trust no one, probably did a background check on his own mother before coming out of the womb _Fury_. I guarantee you that he was way further into SHIELD’s systems than you were. Natasha tells me they were using his own override codes to hide things from him.”

Tony narrowed his eyes, latching on to that little morsel.

“Natasha tells you, huh?”

Bruce replaced his glasses and went back to work, unable to hide the red flush staining his cheeks.

“You wanted to make sure the whole team got here. I managed to get in touch; that’s all.”

Tony raised an eyebrow and unsuccessfully attempted to suppress a leering grin.

“Oh, yeah? Should I have left it to you to ‘get in touch’ with Steve and Barton, too?”

Bruce gave a jerky shake of his head and very pointedly didn’t look up from his work. That was okay. They both knew there was nothing going on there. Bruce’s heart would always belong to Betty. That didn’t mean Tony was going to pass up on the opportunity to get under Bruce’s skin, though.

Still, Tony left off there with the teasing for now, instead turning back to his own work as well. There was still a mountain of things to do. JARVIS had mostly taken over the role of coordinating the SHIELD agent rescues, so Tony kept his focus on scrubbing more and more information from the dump off of the internet. By this point, pretty much everything had been snapped up by some person or organization. Intelligence agencies all over the world had fallen on the information with voracious abandon. Tony couldn’t blame them. Unfortunately, there also wasn’t a whole lot he could do to stop them.

While, yes, it was certainly possible for him to hack into their systems and erase what they’d scooped up, it was a dangerous precedent to set. The Avengers operated as an international task force and the last thing they needed was to alienate the countries they might later need to enter, especially with the coming hunt for Hydra. Which left him with damage control instead.

It came as absolutely no surprise at all that not everyone was pleased with Steve and Nat’s actions in taking out SHIELD, mostly because one of the first things Tony had focused on was hiding away any and all information on what exactly the helicarriers had been intended for. (There was no way in hell he was letting anyone get their hands on that algorithm.) The US Senate was already calling for a hearing, and Tony was hearing whispers that the United Nations were going to want one, too. If they didn’t handle this whole thing with care, it was going to blow up in their faces.

They were still at it by the time the others arrived. Tony waved his windows away when JARVIS announced their approach to the tower and stood, stretching his arms over his head until his spine gave a satisfying crack.

“Alright, Brucie-bear, what do you say? Ready for a break?”

“A bit surprised that you’re the one suggesting it, but yes,” he chuckled. “I’m not passing up the opportunity to see you lecture Steve over his reckless actions. It’ll be a nice change of pace from the usual way that goes.”

“Laugh it up while you can, lover boy,” Tony warned him. “I’m gonna be lecturing Natasha, too.”

Bruce smirked, and Tony couldn’t even blame him.

“You can try.”

They met up with the others on the communal floor, dropping bags and exchanging hugs, Steve introducing Sam around.

“So, I bet you’re glad I build rooms for all of you guys now, aren’t you?” Tony teased.

Steve gave him a winning smile.

“Are you sure you don’t mind us crashing here for a while? We wouldn’t want to impose.”

Tony just rolled his eyes.

“Not imposing,” he assured. “Seriously, Capsicle, I _built_ you _rooms_. I’m pretty sure that’s as clear a sign as it gets that I’m good with having you around. Besides, I figure this is as good a base of operations as any if we’re going to be deciding our own missions and all that. No sense in letting any more of Hydra run around if we can help it.”

“You always manage to think of everything, don’t you?”

Tony’s smile turned sharp as he spotted his opening.

“I try to. You know, it’s important to _think about the consequences_.”

It was even more fun getting to lecture Captain America than he’d thought it would be.

Later, when the new arrivals had settled in and Tony had ordered food, they gathered again. Tony sat sprawled across a loveseat with his Tsum weighing down his legs as he took a large bite of pizza. The others were scattered across the room, Tsums rolling around and playing among them. Natasha’s had climbed atop of Clint’s and looked smug as ze squealed in protest. Platonic Tsums, they hardly spent any time apart if Nat and Clint were in the same room.

Steve sat on the couch with Sam and Clint, but he kept staring over at Tony with a small, thoughtful frown on his face. It didn’t take long for Tony to decide he’d had enough of it.

“What? What’s with that face?”

Steve jumped as if he hadn’t expected to get caught. Ha. As if. He had the poker face of a puppy promised a walk in the park.

“Sorry,” he apologized immediately, all the while continuing to stare. “I just… I’d forgotten about your Tsum’s nub.”

Tony frowned, sitting up straighter and setting his plate aside to pull his Tsum closer to him, almost protectively. He fingered zir front, left nub, where the silver covered the tip.

“What about it?”

Because Steve wouldn’t be wearing that expression if there wasn’t something more going on than him just forgetting some small detail. Beside him, Sam seemed to be mentally fitting some pieces together, eyes growing wider and wider as they darted back and forth.

“You can’t be serious,” he cut in. “You’re not really thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”

He glanced over at Natasha, who was watching them all silently, her face a blank mask. Somehow, that only made the dread Tony was feeling grow stronger. He wrapped his arms around his Tsum protectively.

“What?” he demanded. “What’s going on?”

“It makes sense,” Steve directed at Sam, not answering Tony’s question in the slightest. “Zir’s got a silver nub on the left side and long hair. And Tsums grow with age! Look at the size of zir! Which do you think is more likely, that Tony’s soulmate is a _geriatric_ or-”

“Or a genetically modified super assassin?” Sam cut him off.

Tony cast a wild look Bruce’s way, wondering if his brain had malfunctioned and he was suddenly having auditory hallucinations. He couldn’t smell any burnt toast, but he wasn’t quite ready to rule out the possibility of a stroke.

“Excuse me, _what?_ ”

“The Winter Soldier,” Natasha answered, without really answering.

Both Sam and Steve fell silent. Tony frowned. Something about that name sounded familiar.

“You mean that guy who shot you?” Clint asked. Then, to Tony and Bruce, “He’s a ghost story in the intelligence community. Most people don’t even think he’s real, but he’s been credited with assassinations leading back over fifty years. What little there is that’s known about him is that he’s got a metal arm and never fails to kill his target. He’s rumored to have some ties to Russia, but I guess he works for Hydra?”

He directed this last bit Natasha’s way, seeking confirmation. She nodded jerkily.

Steve leaned forward, elbows on knees. He looked positively distraught and it was doing nothing to make Tony feel better.

“He’s Bucky,” Steve choked out. “They must have found him after he fell and they… He didn’t even know his own _name_.”

“Bucky?” Tony asked incredulously. “Bucky _Barnes?_ ”

“It would seem that Hydra pumped him full of some bastardized version of Erskine’s serum and manipulated his memories in some way,” Natasha informed them. “He didn’t recognize Steve at all.”

“Could it have been a clone?” Bruce queried.

Was that really an unironic question being asked in Tony’s life? Fuck, but he was getting too old for this shit.

Steve shook his head in vehement denial, sitting up straight again.

“No, it was Bucky. I think he started to remember some during the fight on the helicarrier. He pulled me out of the water. He saved my life.”

“Yeah, after he tried to kill you _multiple times_ ,” Sam threw in disapprovingly. “Whether this guy is Bucky or a clone or whatever, he’s still dangerous as all hell and we have no idea where he got off to. For all we know, he ran back to Hydra.”

“But you think he’s my soulmate?” Tony asked Steve, resisting the urge to hide his face in his Tsum’s plush.

Steve shrugged helplessly.

“I don’t know. Maybe? I think it makes sense.”

Tony frowned. He’d spent so many years trying to deal with his Tsum’s coldness that he hadn’t spent much time dwelling on who they might be outside of the broad picture. He’d known that the size of his Tsum was odd, but it wasn’t like large age gaps between soulmates were completely unheard of. If Tony’s soulmate _did_ turn out to be some old person, at least they’d have similar expiration dates. (Considering the fact that Tony was very likely not going to be living a very long life, between the danger of being Iron Man and the abuse he’d put his body through with drugs and alcohol over the years.)

“JARVIS, pull everything from the SHIELD-Hydra files that you can find on the Winter Soldier. Like Sam said, no matter who this guy actually is, we need to find him.”

Steve and Natasha exchanged a glance before Natasha rose and crossed the room to sit beside Tony.

“There’s something else that you should know,” she began cautiously. Tony did not at all like the careful tone of her voice. “When we were pursuing a lead, Steve and I came across some evidence that Hydra may have been involved in the car accident that killed your parents. It was… heavily implied that it wasn’t an accident at all.”

Tony had had a lot of surprising things thrown in his face over the years. He was well familiar with surprises that felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over one’s head. This didn’t feel like that, not really. It wasn’t like seeing the bomb land beside him in the desert sand, his name scrawled across the side. That had been fear. It wasn’t like Yinsen telling Tony about his family while he lay dying in the first armor’s arms. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t anger or loss or any of the other any other emotion that Tony could readily identify.

He just felt… numb.

Maybe he had reached his saturation point when it came to crazy, insane things happening in his life. Or maybe it just hadn’t hit him yet. Maybe he was in shock. It had been decades since his parents’ accident, over _twenty years_ since he’d mourned them. The accident had had a huge impact on his life. He _still_ struggled to get into a car that anyone but himself was driving. And yet…

“Oh,” was all he managed to come up with in response. “Alright, then. J, look into that, too, if you would.”

There was still so much of what they’d pulled from the infodump that they still hadn’t been able to sort through. The volume was just so high that anything not pertaining to personnel files or global security had been put off until later.

“We don’t know for sure,” Steve said, “but it looks that way. I’m so sorry, Tony.”

A little tendril of pain wormed its way into Tony’s numbness, just a small crack in the ice. If he wasn’t careful, it would send him plunging down into the frigid depths beneath.

How long had he spent blaming Howard for that crash? Of all the things he hated Howard Stark for, killing this mother was the one he would never be able to forgive. If this turned out to be true, if Howard hadn’t been at fault for the accident… Even seated, Tony felt unsteady. He tossed his unfinished slice of pizza back onto the plate. He wasn’t hungry. Still holding his Tsum in his arms, Tony stood.

“Sounds like I have a lot of work to do,” he said, falling just shy of a casual tone. “I’ll be in the lab.”

None of them tried to stop him as he left, for which he was grateful. He needed time to process all of this new information. He decided to set aside the allegation of his parents’ murder for now. There was a strong possibility of it being true, especially if Natasha felt like it was credible enough to bring to his attention, but they didn’t have any proof. He was going to have to eat this elephant a bite at a time and dealing with ‘what if’s and ‘maybe’s wasn’t going to do him any favors there. JARVIS would be looking for the proof and Tony could deal with that whole issue if or when he found it.

For now, Tony would deal with James Buchanan Barnes AKA the Winter Soldier.

Truth be told, other than the basics, Tony had never really thought too much about his soulmate. He’d had his hands full trying to deal with his Tsum. Tony’d just been trying to _survive_ , to counteract the soul hunger, to achieve enough and yet still be _normal_ enough to merit anything other than his father’s grimacing disapproval. He’d been busy trying to find his way as a fourteen-year-old child on a college campus, taking over a Fortune 500 company and shouldering the burden of a legacy he wasn’t even sure he wanted.

Eventually, even if he wasn’t quite conscious of it, Tony had decided that he was better off not dwelling too much on who his soulmate might be. He would find them when the time was right, taking guesses wouldn’t change that. Honestly, a part of him was surprised they hadn’t approached _him_. He was a recognizable figure, especially since he became Iron Man. It was even more surprising if Bucky had been with Hydra all this time. Surely someone there would think to use Tony Stark’s soulmate as leverage against him.

Would his soulmate’s Tsum have the arc reactor? It certainly wasn’t comfortable, but it _was_ a part of him. He supposed it could go either way. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe that was why Hydra didn’t make the connection. And, of course, there was always the possibility that Bucky wasn’t Tony’s soulmate at all and that this was all just a crazy coincidence.

“Alright, J,” he said, as he slid into the chair behind his desk, “I know I haven’t given you a lot of time, but show me what you’ve got on the Winter Soldier. Make Daddy proud.”

The air in front of him lit up with an array of screens, all displaying different files JARVIS had found with information or mention of the Winter Soldier within SHIELD-Hydra’s systems. It was no small amount.

Tony took a deep, steadying breath.

“Might want to start a pot of coffee, too. Something tells me we’re going to be here for a while.”

“Of course, Sir.”

His Tsum pressed against Tony’s leg and he reached down to pet it as he got to work.

Tony read for hours, pouring over the information JARVIS had found. Hydra, the sick bastards, had been excellent note-keepers when it came to their human experiments. There were scans and schematics for the Winter Soldier’s metal arm, along with log after log of the tortures and conditioning he’d been put through. Even just reading it left Tony queasy. Apparently, there was some sort of electric chair they’d rigged up to send currents into the Winter Soldier’s brain to keep him from remembering too much.

There was nothing that actually named him as Bucky Barnes, but Tony found enough other information that he felt comfortable confirming it. There was no name given to the Winter Soldier at all, actually, only what basically amounted to a serial number. In reports, he was referred to as ‘the asset’ or ‘the Soldier’, sometimes ‘the subject’. It was disgusting, and Tony hated it.

Still, Tony made himself keep reading, finding the report that mentioned that he’d been found in the bottom of a snowy ravine, arm already mutilated beyond repair. He matched the Winter Soldier’s blood type, height, and hair and eye colors with those of Bucky. The pictures he found were also pretty telling. He’d already known the guy would have to be a dead looker for Steve to claim it was Bucky, but it was a whole other thing to see if for himself. The facial recognition he ran on the pictures, just in case, also made a pretty compelling argument.

It was the reports about the Winter Soldier being kept in a cryotube that really convinced Tony, though.

He’d been keeping track of the dates his Tsum wasn’t cold for years, had started even before going off to college on the advice of a doctor and had kept it up in the futile hope of finding a pattern one day. Well, he was finding that pattern now as he had JARVIS pull up a list and compared it to mission reports. Every one he could find matched up, not to mention that it made sense why his Tsum hadn’t gone cold again yet _this_ time. There were still a few dates without a correlating mission, but Tony had hardly made it through all of the reports.

A feeling of dread pooled in his stomach as he stared at one of the remaining dates.

“JARVIS, isolate and pull up any mission reports dated in mid-December 1991.”

JARVIS, efficient as ever, found in almost immediately.

In a sharp contrast to his earlier numbness, Tony now felt like he was filled to the brim with too _many_ emotions. He didn’t know where to even begin to sort through them.

He finally knew who his soulmate was, James Buchanan Barnes, a World War II veteran who’d spent the last seventy years being tortured and used as an international assassin by an organization of Nazis.

And he was also the man who’d killed Tony’s parents.

His Tsum made a soft trilling noise as zir nubs batted at Tony’s pantleg, trying to find purchase to pull zirself up and into his lap. Sensing his distress, ze was trying to comfort him.

Tony’s whole body trembled. He couldn’t help it. He just shook and shook and _shook._ He bent over double, head hanging down between his knees as he found himself suddenly gasping for breath. His heart raced in his chest, pounding against his ribcage like it was trying to beat its way out. His eyes were wide and stinging with tears. His breath hitched on a sob as something inside of him broke and gave way. Wet drops fell, landing on his Tsum’s head where ze had squirmed in between his legs to get closer to him.

“Call Bruce,” Tony gasped out, clinging to whatever scraps were left of his sanity as he fought off the onslaught of the coming panic attack. “J, call Bruce!”

“Dr. Banner is already on his way,” JARVIS’s soothing, steady voice came from all around him. “He’ll be here soon.”

Tony’s Tsum gave another concerned trill and sat up to press zir face against him. He reached down for zir, all but collapsing out of his chair and onto his knees. He felt his Tsum startle at the noise of the chair tipping over and falling, but Tony only clung harder. His arms wrapped tightly around the plush, bean-shaped representation of his soulmate.

All he’d ever wanted was to be able to hold his Tsum without the cold forcing layers between them. All he’d wished for growing up was the ability to cuddle with his Tsum comfortably. He wasn’t going to let this stop him. His parents might have been murdered, and his soulmate might have been the one who murdered them, but Tony wasn’t going to let that come between him and his Tsum. He was going to take the comfort he’d craved his entire life and the rest be damned. As for Bucky, he’d make that judgement once they actually found the man.

.             

Life went on for the Avengers. They looked for Bucky, of course, but there were other things that interrupted their search. With so much information, they couldn’t afford to give Hydra the chance to crawl back into their hidey hole. They had to strike while they could. None of them talked about Hydra killing Tony’s parents, or about Bucky being his soulmate, but he could feel their eyes on him. He knew they were watching him for signs of another breakdown.

For all that their concern was well-meaning, it still rankled him. His temper flared whenever he was in a room with his teammates for too long, which he was sure didn’t help matters in the slightest. Finally, he just couldn’t take it anymore.

“What do you mean you’re going back to Malibu?” Steve asked, eyes wide and hurt.

“JARVIS will still be working on finding Bucky,” Tony promised, “and Iron Man will be available if I’m needed but… I need a break, Steve. With everything that’s happened, I just need some time to myself.”

“You could take a break here. Why do you need to go to Malibu? We’re all worried about you, Tony, that’s all.”

The smile he gave Steve was rueful at best.

“And that’s exactly why I need to go. I appreciate your concern, Cap, but I can’t process with all of you hovering over me all the time. Clint offered to make me a hot chocolate to help me sleep yesterday. _Clint._ I need a little space.”

Steve’s frown toed the line of turning into a pout.

“Clint makes great hot chocolate.”

“It’ll just be for a month or so,” Tony promised. “I tell you what, how about I promise to fly back for Thanksgiving and again on Christmas? Hell, I may be back for good by Christmas. I’m not leaving the team, just taking some time. For me.”

It was obvious that Steve still didn’t like the idea, but that he couldn’t come up with a good way to convince Tony not to go.

“Alright,” he finally acquiesced, “but you better not avoid our calls. If I don’t hear from you for too long, I’ll come over there myself.”

This time, Tony’s grin was much more genuine. They’d come so far from the time they’d saved New York and just gone their separate ways.

“I don’t doubt it.”

As he said his goodbyes to the rest of the team, Tony found that grin lingering. Somehow, insanely, he really had found a family here with these people. It still boggled his mind to think about, and he wasn’t sure exactly when it happened, but they just seemed to never quite leave after the fall of SHIELD. Tony certainly wasn’t complaining, especially not when he had his Tsum still warm and pressed up against him at every given opportunity.

His Malibu mansion was quieter than Tony remembered it being, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The tower was always filled with life and noise these days, and that was exactly what Tony was trying to get a break from. It was only temporary, after all. He’d be back before he knew it. Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away, after all.

It didn’t take him long to find a routine of building and creating, sometimes visiting the R&D offices of the west coast SI headquarters. He liked being so close to Pepper and Happy again, too. He’d missed his friends, even if he still saw them more often than he saw Rhodey. There had been quite a long time when he was used to seeing them every day, Happy especially. It felt good to step back into the boxing ring with him again and show off the skills he’d been learning from Natasha and Steve.

Life had never been exactly simple for Tony, but there had certainly been times when it was less complicated. It was nice to be able to set some of those complications aside for a while and pretend they didn’t exist. He could allow himself to relax here, as much as Tony Stark was ever able to relax. He was reluctant to give it up, even if he also enjoyed himself when he went back to New York for Thanksgiving. Steve and the others were obviously disappointed to see him go again, but Tony felt like he had a safe-haven in Malibu. For all that he had plenty of bad memories in this house, it was still his home in a way that New York never had been.

And then Happy got caught in the explosion of a suicide bomber sent by the Mandarin. Something inside Tony howled viciously at the idea that anyone would dare hurt him. Not Happy.

Tony probably should have seen it coming, actually. Things had been going too well. He was too _happy_ and _content_. He should have known better than to think it would last. That was never how his life worked. Steve called as soon as the press conference aired, but Tony let it go to voicemail.

The Mandarin came for him, just like Tony had intended, though he hadn’t actually counted on his house being bombed into the ocean. That was fine, though. Everybody who cared about him thought he was dead, but his Tsum was still at his side, helping him drag his armor through the snow. It was surprisingly strong, he’d learned over the years. His Tsum adored Harley, and the boy didn’t even seem to mind that they’d up and invaded his shed, just brought an extra blanket to ward off the frigid air. When his enemies started _breathing fire_ at him, Tony had to admit that he was pretty grateful for the cooler temperature.

Once Killian was dead and Pepper was rescued, Tony returned to New York. He wasn’t sure if he would rebuild the Malibu mansion, in all honesty. The escape had been nice, but the whole experience had been a lesson in not letting him forget himself. This was his life, the constant danger and threat. He couldn’t afford to let himself forget it again. He was just lucky he’d left the bots at the tower to ‘help’ Bruce or they would have been destroyed in the blast.

The welcoming he got from the team was pretty heartwarming, too, he could admit. They were _pissed_ , of course, especially Steve, but they were also relieved to get him back in one piece. After a very stern lecture, Bruce was even willing to help him figure out the feasibility of using Extremis to remove the arc reactor. If there was a way to take it out without leaving a gaping hole in his chest, Tony would jump at the chance. He’d lived every day since he’d woken up in that cave in pain and he was more than ready for it to be over.

For all that it was keeping him alive, the arc reactor was a huge hunk of metal sitting in the middle of his chest. The ribs around it had to be broken and removed to make room, his organs squeezed to the sides. His lung capacity was so severely compromised that Tony still got winded just walking up a flight of stairs. (He had a special oxygen-rich mixture of air that he pumped through the suit in order to compensate.) Even just staying still, it was a pain. If he lay on his back, the casing would press down on his spine and lungs and his own body weight would do the same if he lay on his front. Laying on his side just pressed it down against other organs and the broken fragments of his ribs. Most nights, Tony had to rig up a pile of pillows along his side to angle his chest forward against them so that they would take the weight of the reactor instead.

All in all, he could stand to do without it.

Bruce, the brilliant gift to the world that he was, readily agreed to help. With Tony ironing out the difficulties with Extremis’s code (and figuring out a way to deactivate it afterwards) and Bruce working through the hurdles that would come with the surgery itself, they made rapid progress. Tony checked in with Pepper every day of it, making sure she was okay and assuring her that they were getting closer to finding a solution for the fact that she, too, had been injected.

The guilt of knowing Pepper and Happy had been hurt because of him was a crushing burden for Tony to bear and he did everything in his power to make it right. Happy was still in the hospital recovering from his extensive burns, but he was stable. If Tony could figure Extremis out, he’d be able to use it to heal Happy, too. There were limitless uses for it, actually, just as Maya had originally intended. It could cure cancer and dementia and rehabilitate _so many_ people who had been born without or lost limbs. But, as Killian had shown, it was also far too easily weaponizable.

For all that Tony was going to use it to help _himself_ and _his_ friends, he knew he couldn’t use it to help anyone else. He was making the conscious decision not to, even when he had the solution in his grasp. They would have to continue suffering because Tony couldn’t trust the world to do the right thing. There would always, _always_ be the person waiting there to take advantage of the situation and Tony couldn’t risk that happening. But he couldn’t _not_ help Pepper and Happy, though. They deserved at least that much after having been hurt because of him.

Pepper was first, as soon as Tony figured out how to deactivate the Extremis virus. The relief that washed over her face as she felt it shutting down was palpable and Tony felt a rush of guilt once again. Happy was still unconscious, so they couldn’t ask his opinion on the matter, but Tony’d had him transferred to the medical wing at the tower as soon as he was stable enough to be moved and it was a simple thing to inject him with a variant of the serum already designed to deactivate in a matter of hours. (And stabilized to avoid the risk of his body rejecting it, of course.)

When it came time for Tony’s own surgery, though, he hesitated. Did he really have the right to use Extremis for his own gain when he wasn’t willing to use it for others? Perhaps keeping the arc reactor should be his penance, a constant reminder of the choices he’d made and how much it had cost others. It certainly served as such for his war mongering and turning a blind eye to the illegal weapons sales happening right under his nose. Bringing it up with Bruce had only earned him a flat, expressionless look, though, and that had been the end of that.

The doctor who performed the surgery was an extremely accomplished individual named Dr. Strange. He was technically a neurosurgeon, but his track record for performing tricky operations still put him squarely at the top of their list. He would have Dr. Cho supervising, of course, but his hands would still be the ones performing the surgery. When Tony met him ahead of time, it took less than ten seconds for him to realize that Strange might actually be an even bigger asshole than Tony himself was. Tony thought he was fantastic.

Life without the arc reactor was… an adjustment. In all honesty, Tony hadn’t realized how much he’d structured his life around the reactor. Being without it was freeing and incredible, and Tony caught himself smiling giddily every time he caught himself going to move a certain way or do something to accommodate it and realized all over again that he _didn’t have to_. It was pretty awesome and Tony reveled in every minute of it. He still felt guilty over his decision not to help others in need, of course, but that just motivated him to look for other ways to help them.

Tony didn’t have a lot of free time, even if he and Bruce had set aside Ultron since the whole SHIELD incident. The team was still working to track down and eliminate Hydra strongholds, their leads growing harder and harder to come by as more time passed and those they hadn’t gotten to yet having the chance to run and hide. And then, there was the search for Bucky.

The Winter Soldier was just as good at disappearing as the ghost he was compared to. Tony had barely been able to catch anything more than brief glimpses of the man, even with JARVIS running facial recognition software on any pictures and film they could get their hands on. Bucky seemed to be hopping countries, though, something that made the whole task that much more difficult. It was an insurmountable volume of content to sort through, even for JARVIS’s servers.

They still tried, though, and Steve, Sam, and Natasha jetted off whenever they got a lead. They’d never managed to make contact, though. Bucky was always long gone before they showed up. It was frustrating, but no one on the team was willing to give up on him. They were going to bring Bucky in from the cold, at the very least make sure that he was safe and happy. There were too many Hydra assholes still running around for them to feel good about Bucky being off on his own.

The quasi-routine they’d fallen into was disrupted by Thor’s reappearance, though. It wasn’t so much the god himself, but more the aliens and the portals that came with him. Despite the bad memories and trauma that brought up, Tony was glad to have the guy back. No one could fill a space with their presence quite like Thor did. Finding out that he was moving back to Earth for a more extended time was even better. Tony’d built a room for him, just like he had the others, so it was good that someone would finally be getting some use out of it.

When they tracked down Wolfgang von Strucker’s base in Sokovia, which seemed to be the place Loki’s scepter had been taken to, Tony called the whole team together to take care of it. Even with Thor back on the roster, Tony still had his reservations. Apparently Strucker was into all kinds of human experimentation, the sick bastard. They had to be ready to encounter anything.

Breaching the stronghold went off without a hitch, though Tony was the only one who actually entered, and it was only after he was inside that an enhanced showed up to give the others trouble. Tony wanted to turn back, to help them, but he had to ensure that his task was completed. They couldn’t let Hydra keep Loki’s scepter. Even if they didn’t know how it worked, it was far too powerful to be left in their hands. Better to send it back to Asgard with Thor. Tony was definitely a big fan of taking all this weird, alien shit and getting it the fuck off their planet.

Trusting his teammates to be able to handle themselves, Tony pushed deeper into the compound, taking out Hydra goons until he found the lab where the scepter was being kept. Whatever scientists had been in charge of the area had already fled, but Tony remained wary as he stepped into the room. There was no way Strucker didn’t have a few nasty safety precautions in place.

There was a hint of red at the corner of Tony’s vision and he started to turn, only for his attention to be caught by a figure stepping out from behind a workstation. The Winter Soldier wore the same black leather armor he had during the confrontation at SHIELD, but he’d forgone his mask and goggles. Glossy brown hair hung down around his face in gentle waves and Tony found himself suddenly transfixed.

“Bucky? What are you doing here?”

Tony didn’t raise his faceplate, though, all too aware of the guns strapped to Bucky’s body.

“It’s okay,” Bucky said in a deep, rough voice that sent a shiver down his spine. “I’m me. You’re Tony, right? You don’t have to be afraid.”

Bucky’s expression was open and honest and Tony could feel his heart pounding away in his chest. He wished his Tsum were here for this, but the team had left their whole brood on the quinjet for safety. Tsums had no place in battle situations. Bucky didn’t have his Tsum with him, either, and Tony pushed down a pang of disappointment.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again.

Bucky came closer, all smooth grace but not reaching for a weapon.

“I heard you were coming,” Bucky admitted with a smile. “I was hoping I’d find you.”

“You were?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, right in front of Tony now, “I hate leaving a job unfinished.”

Tony didn’t know how he got a knife in his hand so quickly, or how that knife managed to penetrate the Iron Man armor, but he certainly felt it as the blade plunged into his chest. He choked on the metallic tang as blood flooded his mouth and he coughed, gasping for air that just wouldn’t come. Bucky grinned broadly as he held Tony close and drove the knife in deeper, the physical pain not even comparable to the ache of betrayal.

“I’m so glad I found you, soulmate.”

.

Tony woke up on the quinjet, Bruce’s worried, exhausted face swimming into focus above him. He was out of the armor and his head was pounding, but he couldn’t locate any other pain on his person. His Tsum was a familiar weight atop his lap.

“What happened?” he rasped and was immediately offered a cup of water by Steve, who appeared in his vision to help him sit up.

“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Bruce said. “We found you in one of the labs, collapsed and unconscious.”

Tony groaned and rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to remember past the pounding in his skull.

“Bucky was there,” he began slowly, trying to piece things back together. “He was in the lab and he had a knife. He…”

_stabbed me._

But that couldn’t be right. Tony couldn’t feel any sort of injury and a stab wound wasn’t something that just mysteriously vanished. Steve looked alarmed.

“What do you mean Bucky was there?”

“I… I don’t think it was real,” Tony finally settled on. “I don’t know what it was, but I _saw_ him. I _spoke_ to him, but it wasn’t real.”

Steve and Bruce exchanged a glance.

“We’ll run a tox screen when were get back to the tower,” Bruce decided, “and figure out where we should go from there. I don’t fancy the idea of Hydra being able to induce hallucinations or whatever it was they managed to do.”

“Me neither,” Tony agreed. “How are the others? Everyone good?”

Bruce grimaced and glanced over his shoulder to the other side of the quinjet.

“Clint got shot. He’ll be alright, but we need to get him to Helen first thing. She’s already standing by.”

Tony groaned and let himself sag against Steve’s shoulder where he was still supporting him.

“Fuck. Well, this has been a shitshow, hasn’t it? Did we at least recover the scepter?”

“We did,” Bruce confirmed. “Whatever they did to you, they didn’t use it as an opportunity to get the scepter back.”

“Not exactly a comforting thought.”

“Not at all.”

As soon as Tony was feeling a bit steadier, he made his way across the quinjet to keep Clint and Natasha company. He hated seeing the blood seeping through Clint’s clothes, but he just kept reminding himself that Dr. Cho would be able to stitch him back together in no time at all. He might not even get a new scar out of it.

Sure enough, Dr. Cho and her team whisked Clint off as soon as the quinjet landed, while Tony accompanied Bruce back to his lab to run some blood tests and brain scans. Thor and Steve took charge of depositing the scepter into the vault until Thor took it back to Asgard for even safer keeping. He may have renounced his title as high prince, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t able to still visit his home world, especially not if it was for a matter such as this.

By the time Steve came back up to the lab to join them, the test results were still inconclusive.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Bruce said, removing his glasses to clean them on the hem of his shirt. “All of our tests are coming back normally. There are no traces of drugs in Tony’s system, not in his blood, hair, _or_ nails. His brain functions all look to be in line with our baseline readings, except for his stress levels being slightly elevated, but that’s understandable.”

Steve’s frown said everything Tony was feeling.

“Something happened to you in that base, though. Could it have been another enhanced? Like the one we ran into outside?”

“It seems the most likely option,” Tony agreed, “and I’m not thrilled with the idea that there is at _least_ one enhanced Hydra goon running around out there, maybe more. We need to track them down.”

“And we will. I’ve already spoken to Maria about it.”

Maria Hill had been a blessing, showing up in Stark Industries’ Human Resources office just hours after the fall of SHIELD. She’d taken the helm in getting the Avengers up and running on their own terms, repurposing the recovered SHIELD personnel and their now-unemployed family members. It had been a huge undertaking and Tony would never not be grateful that she had taken it on instead of him.

“If they’re out there, she’ll find them,” he agreed. “How’s Clint doing?”

“Up and about and complaining to anybody willing to listen,” Steve said with a grin. They were all relieved by the news. It was always an unsettling thing when one of them got hurt. “He’ll be ready for the party tonight.”

“Remind me to fire whoever’s brilliant idea it was to plan a party on the same day we had a mission.”

Bruce chuckled.

“I believe you only have yourself to blame for this one.”

Tony’s Tsum trilled as if in agreement and Tony glared even as he gave the little guy an extra squeeze. Ze’d been extra-clingy ever since Tony had regained conscious on the quinjet. It’d probably freaked zir out to see Tony having to be carried back in.

“Hush you,” he admonished lightly, gently pulling on zir little front nubs. Then, to the others, “Guess we should wrap this up, then. I know it takes at least an hour for you to get those curls tamed, Brucie-bear.”

With rolled eyes and a few more well-meaning jabs, they parted ways, shutting down and locking up the lab for the night. Tony and his Tsum headed up to the penthouse while the others headed down to their own floors. In all honesty, Tony was still feeling more than just a little shaken up over his earlier vision. He could still feel the gentle caress of Bucky’s breath over his cheek as the other man slipped a knife into him. Without the others there with him, it was all the more difficult to keep himself distracted from the uneasy churning of his gut.

He dressed hurriedly in an all-black three-piece suit and made his way back down to the party level where he’d be sure to be able to distract himself with the hustle and bustle of preparations. He tied a little bowtie around his Tsum’s neck and ze trotted happily alongside him. Maria intercepted them before they’d even made it three steps onto the floor.

“Sir,” she greeted with her usual curt directness. “Do you have a moment?”

“For you? Always. Have you managed to find any information of what enhanced individuals might have been at Strucker’s base?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. This is about another matter.”

She started walking, inclining her head to say he should follow. With a glance around the room at the various people setting up for the coming event, Tony couldn’t exactly fault her desire for a more private location. Anyone coming into the building had to be vetted intensely, but that didn’t mean the waitstaff should be trusted with every dirty little secret.

Maria led him down one of the hallways and to a side room that was really just a staging area more than anything else. She held the door open so he could enter first and then closed it behind him without entering herself. Tony tensed, suddenly alert, and took a step back towards the door before something moved from further in the room. He immediately got between his Tsum and whatever it was.

“Nice place you’ve got here, Stark,” a familiar voice spoke from the darkness. “You’ve done a good job with the Avengers.”

“Fury,” he greeted, as the man stepped out of the shadows and into the dusk light filtering through the windows, “I thought you were in the wind, keeping a low profile.”

“I am. I just stopped by because I came into some information that might be of interest to you.”

He reached into his coat and withdrew a card, setting it aside on a stack of chairs for Tony to pick up. It was a business card for a hotel, as best as Tony could tell. The language on it was definitely Slavic of some kind, but Tony wasn’t able to tell exactly which one.

“What’s this? A Hydra lead?”

“Not exactly,” the former director hedged. “When was the last time you took a vacation, Stark?”

Tony narrowed his eyes at the other man, trying to figure out his game.

“I’ve been a little busy lately.”

Fury nodded with a sort of disinterested understanding.

“You might think about taking one,” he advised casually. “I hear Romania is lovely this time of year.”

“What exactly is this about?”

Fury’s gaze flickered down to Tony’s Tsum for half a second before focusing back on Tony again.

“Think about it. The weather changes frequently over there. I can’t say for certain how long it’ll last.”

Then he swept past Tony and out the door before he could say another word. Damn, infuriating spies.

“J?”

“Yes, Sir?”

Tony looked down at the card in his hand again.

“See if the penthouse suite at the Volo Hotel is available.”

“For what date, Sir?”

“Tomorrow.”

“At once. I’ll notify Stark Industries that you’ll be unavailable for your meetings and prepare the private jet.”

“You’re the best, J.”

Tony tucked the card into his suit pocket and headed for the door. He had a party to get to.

It was a good thing Tony was as accustomed to galas and the like as he was. He was able to breeze through the party without letting on to anyone just how unsettled he was. Well, Natasha, Rhodey and Bruce may not have bought the act, but he thought the others had. Honestly, Tony spent half the event worrying about what to say if Steve brought up his mention of Bucky. Tony had enough hang-ups when it came to his soulmate. He didn’t need another one.

It didn’t come to that, though, and Tony even returned to his rooms at what could be called a reasonable hour to pack and get ready to fly out the next morning. He didn’t tell anyone on the team about Fury. If Fury wanted them to know, he would have arranged to pull his spook routine in front of all of them. No, for whatever reason, this lead was for Tony alone. He left a note with JARVIS to tell the team that he was out of town, but not to reveal where unless it became pertinent to his safety. That left him with a few hours to catch some sleep before he headed out. The team wouldn’t like it, what with the enhanced having messed with his head just the day before, but they’d just have to deal.

His arrival was disappointingly uneventful. Tony kept half-expecting for some covert operative to pop up in the backseat of his executive rental car, or to be slipped some telling document when he checked into the hotel, or even to find Fury himself already waiting in the room. Tony didn’t bother to unpack, instead moving to the huge windows that made up one wall of the penthouse suite to frown out at the dark city sprawled before him. What exactly did Fury want him to do here? Something told him it didn’t have anything to do with the two enhanced that had escaped them at the Hydra base, though that would have made sense.

Tony had done some digging while on the eleven-hour flight over, but the hotel and its current guests all seemed to be on the up and up. Well, one of the ladies on the third floor was having what appeared to be _several_ affairs, but Tony couldn’t imagine that being worth dragging him halfway around the world for. It was past three in the morning, local time, but it was still only four in the afternoon by Tony’s internal clock. He resigned himself to a sleepless night and a long day tomorrow as he turned away from the windows and moved to unpack the computer set-up he’d brought along.

He set up searches into everything from Bucharest’s local government to trying to find some nefarious pattern in their tourist economy. Fury _had_ mentioned Tony taking a vacation. It just wasn’t clear if that was supposed to be a hint or a cover story. By mid-morning, Tony was hungry, frustrated by the lack of suspicious activity, and so fed up with his hotel suite that he was about ready to scream. Pulling on a jacket to combat the chilly air and wrapping a scarf tightly around the lower hand of his face as a disguise, Tony headed out into the city, Tsum at his heels.

With the arc reactor gone and no longer sending his body temperature plummeting at the slightest hint of cold, chilly weather was actually pleasant again. Growing up with a frigid Tsum had accustomed him to the cooler temperatures, especially when that was often the only weather he wasn’t sweating in his long-shirts and pants in. In this case, it helped that no one ever seemed to recognize him as long as his beard was hidden and a scarf saved him from having to shave it off.

Eventually, he found a coffee shop with at least a passable brew and a cashier who spoke broken French. Tony didn’t want to get himself labeled as an American right off the bat, if he needed to be covert about this whole thing. Besides, if someone did catch his scent, there was no reason to put some random civilian in danger for having spotted and recognized him.

He found a table in the back, tucked away from most of the other customers and slid into the booth to enjoy his drink. His Tsum scrambled up next to him, half-sprawled across his lap, and wouldn’t stop fidgeting. The little guy kept squirming this way and that, clearly worked up about something, not that Tony could figure out what. It was unusual behavior for the Tsum and exactly what Tony needed: one more reason to be on edge.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, though a great deal more coffee was the only thing that got Tony through to the end of it. He fell into bed that evening utterly exhausted but with nothing to show for it. Even more frustratingly, that didn’t change over the course of the next few days. He had a few calls from the team and Pepper, all of them having questions. It was surprisingly hard to lie and throw them off the scent when even _Tony_ didn’t know what he was doing. If all of this turned out to be some ploy by Fury to get him to actually take a break, his plan had seriously backfired. Tony didn’t think he’d been this stressed out in years.

And that was saying something.

By the fourth day, Tony was about ready to call Hill and tell her that either Fury could tell him what was actually going on, or he could come deal with whatever this mess was himself. In a foul mood and grumbling to himself, Tony headed out to the little fruit stand he’d discovered the day before. It had the absolute _best_ blueberries and that was just about the only thing that was going to make a dent in Tony’s black mood.

The old woman who owned the stand greeting him with a huge smile helped, though.

“Ah! Return customer! See? I tell you _coacăze_ were good!”

Since she hadn’t known any French and Tony didn’t know a lick of Romanian, they’d settled for English.

“And you were right,” Tony admitted easily, a smile sneaking onto his face.

“Today you try strawberry,” the woman instructed him brusquely, pronouncing the word carefully. “You like, too.”

Tony winced inwardly, remembering the incident when he’d bought strawberries for Pepper in an attempt at an apology.

“I’m sure they’re very good, but I’ll stick with the blueberries, thank you.”

But the woman was already shaking her head.

“Too many _coacăze_ no good! Hurt stomach. You try strawberry. Is better for you.”

Tony couldn’t help the grin that quirked his lips at the woman’s demanding tone. As long as they weren’t being assholes about it, he always got a kick out of people disregarding him being _Tony Stark_ in favor of bossing him around to get their way. Hell, that was pretty much the summary of his entire friendships with Rhodey _and_ Pepper. This woman might not know he was actually Tony Stark, but he had a feeling that it wouldn’t change a thing if she did.

“How about I buy a carton of strawberries _and_ a carton of blueberries? Both. Would that be acceptable to you?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“You come back tomorrow. Can have _coacăze_ then.”

Tony was just opening his mouth to respond when his Tsum barreled into his legs, almost toppling him over as ze attempted to climb him. Alarmed, Tony dropped into a crouch and gathered the little guy close.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Above him, the woman seemed unbothered by his disappearance behind her display as she crowed, “Best customer! Come, come! I set aside for you.”

Heavy black combat boots under rumpled jeans stepped into Tony’s view and suddenly it was all he could do to keep his hold on his squirming Tsum. Ze was issuing all sorts of affronted and demanding trills and Tony didn’t know what to do. They were going to attract far too much attention if this kept up. He was just about to reach the point of giving it up for lost and hauling ass back to the hotel so he could figure out what was wrong with his Tsum in private when he realized that not all the squealing was coming from _his_ Tsum.

His eyes tracked up jeans to take in a red, long-sleeved Henley stretched across a broad, muscular chest. A few strands of long, brown hair had escaped their bun to fall around a face with a strong jaw, dusted with stubble. Wide, stormy eyes stared down at him above plush lips slightly parted in surprise. The man, the _beautiful, gorgeous_ man who could only be one person, held a squirming Tsum with both hands, one flesh and one metal. The Tsum, clad in what looked like jeans and a hoodie that said MIT across the front with a smear of black across one cheek, seemed to be trying zir damnedest to swim through thin air to get to Tony.

Tony rose slowly to his feet, both arms wrapped tight around his Tsum and clutching zir to his chest. His eyes never left the other man’s. Beneath the shock, he could see disbelief and longing, and a bit of fear, too. Tony squeezed his Tsum a bit tighter.

“So, you’re Bucky, I assume?”

Something flashed across the man’s face too quickly for Tony to quite catch.

“I’m trying to be.”

.

Later, when they were sprawled out across the couch of Tony’s suite, Tony cuddled up to Bucky’s chest with both of their Tsum’s piled on his back, Tony thought he could definitely get used to being so surrounded by warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> Come over and check out more of my shenanigans on [ Tumblr! ](https://shi-toyu.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, I am not planning to continue this fic, but I would still love to hear from you in the comments!


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